On Human Bondage

: After Slavery and Social Death

A generation after Patterson’s seminal work Slavery and Social Death (1982), On Human Bondage takes stock of how well his principal ideas have stood the test of time, as thirteen specialists of slavery in different cultures assess his work.

• The first broad assessment of Patterson’s seminal work by historians of different fields on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of its publication
• Thirteen specialists of slavery in different cultures assess the utility of Patterson’s central concepts for understanding slave societies 
• Provides sustained engagement with the most influential existing model of the nature of slavery
• Includes global cross-cultural coverage from antiquity to the early modern period, in Asia, Africa, Europe and the New World
• Offers a fascinating dialogue between the thirteen scholars and Patterson, as he responds to their essays by elaborating and further expounding his own thinking about slavery thirty years after his work’s publication